menced in haste, and concluded so; as he arrived with his family at a late hour in the night, and proceeded to the house where he had before engaged a few cheap, but handsomely furnished apartments.

As to the three females belonging to the establishment, Mrs Holbey and two daughters, they averred they never closed their eyes during the first night of their sojourn in the great city. Visions of splendor, of dress, of pomp, of show and parade, with conquests innumerable, flitted past in rapid succession, through the morning watches, though they arose at a late hour, it did not appear that any one among them had enjoyed the blessing of repose, except the two small boys, sons of Mr Holbey, and a niece, whose unfortunate destiny had compelled her for the present to be an inmate of their family.

Far other visions haunted the pillow of the 'Squire, and disturbed his repose. He had embarked his all in an uncertain cause. He had left the quiet haven of domestic peace, his own home and fire-side enjoyments, in rural plenty, and launched his barque upon the troubled ocean of politics, but one aim possessed his soul, all his thoughts were engrossed by one subject, and he had resolutely determined to trample down every thing which stood in the way of his ambition. Conscientious scruples never troubled him, he was no coward, he had the heart to conceive, and the hand to execute almost any thing, though there was a cautious circumspection in his every movement, which seemed to carry the idea of timidity.

After his establishment at New York, his business, like many things about him, had rather the appearance of

mystery, being engaged from morning until night in writing, but what were the subjects his lucubrations was not known; he had never published any work, or designed to, that his family were apprised of. His evenings were usually devoted to company, whom he entertained in his. study, and who very seldom stopped to pay their respects to the female part of the family, notwithstanding the oft repeated invitation,

'Will you walk in and see Mrs Holbey and my daughters??

"Thank you kindly, but we are so much engaged this evening,' was generally the answer, with the addition sometimes of You know, 'Squire, we politicians have so little time to devote to ladies.'

'Just so, just so,' responded the crafty 'Squire, obliged to take the slight whether it was palatable or not, that is what I often tell them,' and the family amidst a nightly influx of company, had now lived some weeks in the city: in almost total solitude. What this desertion could mean, is beyond our power to explain, but Mrs Holbey always chose to attribute it to the malignant influence of a certain family from the same town, who happened most unfortunately to take up their residence in the same neighborhood, and whose distant and somewhat contemptuous manners they always chose to style political persecution. But whatever was the cause of 'Squire Holbey's fire-side being deserted, it is certain his lady's want of industry and perseverance was not. That amiable woman (for she always bore the character of a very amiable woman) had upon her first arrival in the city busied her imagination,

and taxed her invention, to contrive the very best way of making their debut in society. Among other inquiries she had been trying to ascertain the most fashionable place of worship, and understanding there was more of what she chose to style the nobility frequented T Church than any other, she immediately determined the place of their first public appearance, and persuading her husband to hire an expensive seat in the most sightly part of it, she commenced preparations for the ensuing Sabbath.

To do her justice she had a very good taste of her own in respect to dress; her arrangement of colors, of girdles, of buckles, and rings and bracelets, and in fine, of all the frippery of the modern toilet, were as well planned as those sort of things can be, and after a week of most laborious preparation, the family were at length ready to make their first appearance.

The bell of T Church had nearly done tolling when Mrs Holbey, leaning on the arm of her husband, and leading a procession of three young ladies, and two small boys, brustled into the porch. The elevation of her spirits however had been somewhat damped by the very solemn appearance of the building as she approached it.

The dark and sombre hue of the walls was not relieved by the funeral shade of weeping willows, that all around hung their pendant branches over the sleeping dead, while the finely chisseled but mouldering monuments beneath, too plainly told the end of earthly glory. The very spire, Mrs Holbey protested, 'looked more like a monument than a steeple,' nor was the strange feelings awakened in her bosom at all dissipated upon her entrance into the

Church, and a kind of shudder crept over her, as she discovered by the time-worn inscriptions on the marble flags beneath, that she was stepping over the dust to dust' of former ages. The last stroke of the bell was heard e'er she gained the pew, and the deep toned organ commenced a funeral dirge. Mrs Holbey could scarce tell where she was, while the solemn peal echoed through the lofty arches and seemed to lose itself in the clouds-then suddenly descending, some chord in the bass would almost shake the building to its centre. The instrument was evidently touched by a master's hand, and so absorbed was the woman of the world (for she wasnot insensible to the charms of music) that she never thought of looking towards the pulpit, until the last note had ceasd to vibrate on her ear. The first glance in that direction discovered between the chancel and the desk the black pall suspended over the remains of some fellow being now about to be committed to their last home. The surrounding pews hung with black, and filled with well dressed mourners, announced the departed was of some note; a deep and unbidden sigh escaped from her bosom, while the sentence 'Sic transit gloria mundi' involuntarily escaped from the lips of Mr Holbey. The lady on his left started, with something of a look of pleased surprise; this person we will now introduce to our readers.

Adelaide Mellville was an orphan, the daughter of Mrs Holbey's only sister, and committed to her care, and that of Mr Holbey, by her parents, who both falling a prey to a contagious disease, died within a short time of each other. Mr Mellville would have preferred willing her to his only brother then in Europe, but as no correspondence had been

kept up with him, and they were ignorant of his particular situation, it was thought most advisable to leave her to friends nearer home, and with ill judged and indiscreet confidence they bequeathed to him at the same time their whole property without specifying its amount, or requiring any kind of pledge that it should be devoted to the maintenance of their orphan child. There were some trifling debts to pay, and as in all cases of sudden death, the property was left in some confusion, but Mr Holbey, sole executor of the will, set himself most earnesily to work to settle the estate, the amount of which he declared to be little or nothing, and that he considered it bringing up Adelaide upon charity to take her into his family and educate her with his daughters, but as she was so desolate, and besides nearly related it should be done. This of course did not who knew that

blind the inhabitants of the town of Mr. Mellville began the world with a decent property, and that he had been remarkably prudent and industrious in his business, never engaging in any rash speculations whereby he could have encumbered his estate.

Poor Adelaide had now been some years in the family, and compelled as they made her believe, to eat the bread of dependence, though she in reality was the only person imposed upon. Nor were there wanting persons to insinuate as much to the orphan, and to advise her to have the matter of the Will investigated, and ascertain whether her father, who was constantly delirious during the last days of his life, was competent to make a will. But whether she had too high an opinion of her adopted parents to believe them capable of such flagitious conduct, or whether